EFFICIENCY OF PESTICIDE APPLICATION BY MECHANIZED AND ROBOTIC SPRAYER

Abstract

By differentiated application of pesticides in the precision gardening system, mobile robotic sprayers and sprayers with intelligent control, it is possible to ensure a high level of protective measures in gardening, greater efficiency of their implementation, minimize environmental pollution with pesticides. At the development stage, it is necessary to compare traditional and innovative technical means according to various criteria in relation to real production conditions in order to assess the effectiveness of the upgraded technical solution and calculate the economic effect of its use. (Research purpose) The research purpose is conducting a comparative analysis of the economic efficiency of using a fan sprayer for a differentiated method of applying pesticides mounted on a mobile robotic chassis and a similar device of classical layout for continuous spraying aggregated with a tractor. (Materials and methods) The article presents the main indicators for standardized methods, the content of which is described by industry regulatory and technical documents. (Results and discussion) The article presents a list of initial technical and operational indicators of the compared units. To assess the economic efficiency of the use of two variants of technical means, their comparative assessment was made: indicators of operating costs, their savings, annual economic effect, the size and payback period of additional capital investments. (Conclusions) When using a fan sprayer for differentiated application mounted on a robotic mobile power facility, operating costs are reduced by 25.03 percent, but its shift performance is more than 8 times lower than that of a similar solution using MTZ-80. The payback of additional capital investments spent on the innovative technical solution will be 2.19 years.